Career kickstart

I am a Production Management Assistant within BBC Bristol, Digital Village and I got involved with the BBC through BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility.

At eighteen, I completed the Face2Face training scheme from the department, which was my route into the BBC. Since then I have done a three month placement as an Outreach Assistant, worked with the department on the Talent Ticket Roadshow, a series of one day activities for Year 9 students, as a volunteer – and I continue to help with outreach workshops for primary and secondary students, with the most recent being an dinosaur animation workshop!

BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility is an amazing department and the work they do really does make a difference. It gave me the opening into the world of work/media industry that I needed and I wouldn’t be working for BBC Bristol if it wasn’t for BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility!

By giving young people from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds opportunities to get involved with workshops, you can see the children (of all ages) really engaging and getting involved with tasks they have never done before nor thought of doing before. I have also heard feedback that the workshops have inspired some children and they now know which career path they want to take in the future.

*BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility connects the BBC with its audiences using face-to-face activities – particularly those audiences we may find harder to reach through traditional broadcasting. In Bristol, the department manages a number of different schemes and training opportunities which aim to open up the doors to the BBC and increase diversity amongst staff.

BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility is the department that brings the BBC closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences that have traditionally been harder to reach - through face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering. It also holds the relationship with the voluntary sector for the BBC and tells the story of the BBC’s corporate responsibility work.

We don’t work exclusively with young people, although many of our opportunities are specifically designed to help us reach younger audiences.

Face2Face, which is how Zoe came to join the BBC, is training scheme for young production talent in Bristol. Following an initial three day challenge, participants join a two hour workshop once a week for two months. Around 70 people have completed it so far, with three people each year continuing to a paid full time placement for three months.